The present invention relates to an apparatus for detecting biopolymers capable of detecting the presence of biopolymers such as DNA, RNA and protein in a sample and measuring an existing amount or a concentration thereof, and to a cartridge used for the detection.
As technologies for detecting DNA, such technology has been generally used, in which DNA is modified with a radioactive material, a fluorescence dyestuff or the like by use of technologies of RI (radioactive isotope), fluorescence or the like and excited by a stimulus from the outside for detection of response by luminescence. Also an electric charge detecting method for electrochemically determining DNA based on an oxidation-reduction potential by use of an intercalating agent, which is specifically bonded to a duplex of DNA, has been devised. Further, there is a method of using a surface plasmon resonance phenomenon as a method without modification and the like. With respect to a method of fixing DNA to an electrode, there is a method of utilizing an action that a monolayer of free thiol radicals located on the end of DNA is self-organized on the surface of gold using a thiol modified DNA probe.
In conventional DNA detecting technologies, methods of using RI or fluorescence have been needed to modify DNA.